The Floods 10: Lost

Colin Thompson (author/illustrator)

Random House, Australia: March 2011; 222pp

ISBN: 9781864719468

Genres: adventure, fantasy, humour

The Floods, a family of highly intelligent witches and wizards, are back in their rightful place as the royal family of Transylvannia Waters. Much needs to be done to bring their land out of the Dark Ages.

As tourism is on the rise, Winchflat decides that the land needs to be mapped as Human Beings seem to need more detailed directions than 'here' and 'over there'. Even 'over there near the mountain' doesn't seem to satisfy the stupid Human Beings. So Maldegard, Winchflat's wife, is appointed Official Map Maker, given a car adapted to run on a perpetual motion machine (as there are no petrol stations in Transylvannia Waters) and a companion, Edna Hulbert.

Maldegard and Edna find that mapmaking – especially from scratch – isn't quite as easy as they had thought. Soon they find that not only the surface of Transylvannia Waters needs mapping but also the underground tunnels – of which there are many. Including the Cave of Huge Darkness. Will Maldegard and Edna find their way back home or will they be forever lost in the unmapped, unfamiliar terrain of the underground?

Colin Thompson has had an enormous amount of fun writing this witty, whimsical story, which is packed with puns so bad they're hilarious. The characters are weird, warped and wonderfully different. Gifted readers and adults reading aloud to younger children will enjoy the many references to popular culture, as well as the idea that reconstituted talking chickens plan to rule the world. Or at least Transylvannia Waters. Black and white illustrations (Thompson's, of course) add further humour and encourage visual readers to persist with a longer book. Very funny, very clever and very naughty, The Floods 10 is the most recent in a whole series of seriously silly, slightly rude and highly readable novels from one of Australia's greatest author-illustrators.

NB: gag whoever's reading it or they'll insist on reading bits aloud and spoil it for everybody else by the time they get their hands on the book; alternatively, read the whole book aloud to the entire family – it's much better than the television show it's named after!